Craving for some Zhi Char while you are in Johor Bahru? San Low restaurant is a good option that is 5 mins away from the causeway and served up decently priced seafood and cooked Chinese meals.
The restaurant is no frills and do not expect the comforts of an air conditioned place or fancy seats. You get plastic chairs similar to Zhi Char places in Singapore and your table is wrapped in pink plastic.
The sour sop drink is a good thirst quencher while we wait for our meal to arrive and the place is reasonably busy at 8pm on a rainy Friday night.
It took around 10 - 15 minutes after ordering for our dishes to arrive and we like that the waitress could recommend and portion our dishes properly. We wanted to have some steam fish and knowing that there were only 2 of us, she suggested that we have the fish steak instead of a whole fish which will be too much.
The signature dish of this establishment is the San Low Bee hoon which is fried to a crisp and have plenty of wok hey. The texture is crispy and goes very well with chilli. Not too bad a dish but we had better Bee Hoon dishes.
We continued our meals with fresh dou miao which was served in a generous portion.
Being a seafood restaurant, we had to have some and ordered some red garoupa steamed in HK style. We could not fault the garnish and sauce of the fish is really good but it was lacking in texture as the meat was much too firm for a garoupa.
We also ordered a tofu dish which was unconventionally fried into sticks which reminded me of tofu fries we had at I love Taimei bubble tea. Sweet and sour chili sauce was the provided deep but we did not find the dish too inspiring.
To wash it all down we ordered drunken prawns soup which came with huge prawns. The prawns were plump and fresh and goes well with the herbal broth.
Getting a grabtaxi from city sqaure to the restaurant will not cost you more than 10RM.
For those that drive, I think this is a good option for Singaporeans to come to enjoy seafood considering its location which is just minutes away from the causeway. The food is decent and our favourable exchange rates make it inexpensive to dine here.
Fish 46RM / SGD $15.20
Drunken prawns 32RM / SGD $10.60
Fried tofu 8RM / SGD $2.65
Vegetables 10RM SGD $3.30
San Low Beehoon 7RM SGD $2.30
Soursop 4RM / SGD $1.30 glass
Damage: 118.70RM / SGD $39.25
Food: 7/10
Service: 6/10
